Always Have Paris
by KADH
Summary: Sara’s first trip back to visit Grissom in Paris proves eventful and extraordinary more for its ordinariness than anything else. And she wouldn’t have had it any other way. Occurs between episodes “Ghost Town” and “Coup de Grace,” circa October 2009.
1. One: Homecoming

**Always Have Paris**

Sara's first trip back to visit Grissom in Paris proves eventful and extraordinary more for its ordinariness than anything else. And she wouldn't have had it any other way.

_Follows "For Now" and "Vested Interests" and takes place between episodes 10x02 "Ghost Town" and 10x04 "Coup de Grace," circa October 2009._

*******

**One: Homecoming**

Sara gave her watch another weary glance as she finally made her way past Customs. Even though her body was telling her it should only be half past six in the morning, it was just after three-thirty in the afternoon Paris time.

And a few hours later than she had expected to arrive.

But the flight out of Dulles had been delayed and then she'd made the mistake of being seated towards the rear of the plane, so she'd had to wait almost an hour just to get through Roissy's notoriously slow passport control. Thankfully, she hadn't checked any bags, because apparently none of the luggage had made it from the plane for pick up by the time she passed by the carousels on her way towards Customs. Sadly, it wasn't for nothing that Paris's Charles De Gaulle Airport was reviled for its lack of speed and tendency to complicate even the simplest travel arrangements.

Already nearly four in the afternoon.

She let out a long sigh.

As her plane had left Vegas around one the day before, it was as if an entire day had just vanished. For an aimless moment, Sara half wondered if long distance flight wasn't really a primitive form of time travel, where time went forward or backwards depending on which direction one journeyed. But as the nature of time hadn't really been part of her physics studies and the time travel of science fiction was more Grissom's bailiwick than her own, plus as she really hadn't slept more than a few hours in the last couple of days, Sara decided to table the existential question for later.

Besides, right now she needed to focus on finding her way out of the Air France terminal and to the train station so she could take the RER to connect with the Paris Métro.

If she didn't have to wait too long for the next train, she might, just might, be able to make it back to their _Quartier Latin_ apartment before five and be able to have a proper shower at long last. Her most recent, having been a very hurried one grabbed on her way out of the lab, could have barely been classified as a real shower, except by the very loosest of definitions. But while she may have over the years become inured to the smell, she didn't think her fellow passengers would appreciate the leftover aroma of the two-week old decomp that had been the last case she'd been working on right before she left.

Feeling a little guilty about taking time off so soon after she'd just returned to Vegas, Sara had volunteered for the unpleasant task of processing the personal effects of a rather rank body that had been discovered outside of Boulder City. So a real shower with hot water and something more pleasant than lemons for cleansing was definitely in order. She'd have just enough time for that and to be able to finally change out of the clothes she'd been wearing for the last eighteen hours before her husband came home.

The thought of husband and home made her smile.

That moment she knew would be worth the long flights, crowded planes, the barely recognizable as food airline cuisine, that mad dash to the terminal in D.C. (only to sit on the tarmac for an hour) and the usual regular fuss at Roissy. Back with Grissom again she would be home at last. Thank goodness.

It had been a long couple of weeks; longer than she would have liked or would have even dared admit to herself.

For while it had been good to see everyone again -- she had missed them -- Sara had not missed sorting through remains sent through a wood chipper, dealing with dead bodies in showers or decomps.

And it was different, being back at the lab this time. The job was just that: a job. That didn't mean she didn't give it all of her attention or best efforts, but it was no longer her life, not her whole life, but just a part of that life. And there was a huge difference. She understood that now and it did make things easier. That and having Grissom there with her, even if it was only on the other end of a phone line. Nevertheless, it made the 5,000 miles that separated them seem not quite so distant.

Still, Sara was looking forward to a week where the only dead bodies she had to deal with were the specimens she would be pulling from the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle's extensive insect collections. Having gone back to work as a CSI in Vegas or no, she had every intention of keeping her previously made promise to help Grissom prep for his practicals.

She had paused for a moment to check her bearings (the terminal's directional signage really as horribly confusing as everyone griped that it was) when she thought she heard a familiar voice calling her name.

Even though Sara wasn't a very common name, at least not in France, she was about to shrug it off as a product of an overactive imagination, jet lag, too much overtime at the lab and too little sleep.

Until she heard it again. Clearer. Closer.

She turned.

To find her husband wending his way towards her through the luggage-toting travelers. For a long moment, she just stood there rooted to the spot in stunned wide-eyed wonder, much like she had that afternoon nearly ten months before, when Grissom had suddenly appeared in the middle of the Costa Rican rainforest. The tumult of emotions was much the same -- that rush of surprise and pleasure at seeing him there. Except this time he was smiling at her with an air of comfortable self-assuredness that he had been lacking that December day. For today there was no hint of nervousness or shyness in his mien or manner. In fact, he was practically beaming.

And boy was he a sight for sore eyes. Obviously, he had come straight from his duties at the Sorbonne. For while he had managed to rid himself of the encumbrance of the ever much-loathed necktie, he was still suit-clad with barely a wrinkle in sight. Sara, having had hurriedly shrugged on a clean t-shirt and jeans after her shower and having done nothing with her then damp hair but pull it back into a hurried ponytail, knew she certainly looked more the worse for wear than not.

But Grissom didn't seem to mind or even notice.

Having finally narrowed the distance remaining between them, he greeted her with a bright, affectionate, "_Bonjour, ma chérie_," before leaning in to kiss her in the typical French fashion that Sara especially appreciated, particularly when after pressing a lingering kiss against one cheek and then the other, he lightly brushed his lips against hers before returning to kiss her first cheek a second time.

Although she was still far too baffled even after he had pulled away to do much more than stammer, "What are you...? I thought you...?"

For when they had discussed her impending arrival a few days ago, she was pretty sure that they'd agreed to meet up at their apartment after Grissom had gotten back from work. In fact, Sara clearly remembered insisting that he didn't need to come get her.

The truth was that while Grissom had thought about protesting her dictum at the time, he had decided to feign agreement then show up at the airport anyway.

"Not happy to see me?" he asked, more amused at her response than concerned, and was even more so, when Sara hurriedly replied, "I didn't say _that_."

For she was happy to see him, beyond happy to see him. Ecstatic. Especially as she hadn't really realized how much she'd truly missed him until that first moment they were back together again.

"But," she was saying, still sounding as perplexed as she felt, "I thought you had... I mean, don't tell me you're already shirking work just to be here."

He shook his head. Then with an almost guilty sort of grin he began rattling off in rapid French something about classes ending early, the afternoon's faculty meetings being cancelled, his office hours postponed, the traffic being good for once and her flight being late, all of which meant that he'd been able to get there in time.

She almost laughed at this. Grissom wasn't any better at stretching the truth in French than he was in English. For even if Sara believed in coincidences (and she knew better than to do so, particularly when her husband was involved), there were just way too many coincidences for it to be credited. But she was too tickled by the fact that he had gone through so much trouble that she wasn't about to call him on it or even let on that she knew he wasn't telling her the entire truth.

In any case, he'd obviously wanted to see his wife again as much as she had wanted to see him.

So she let him take her one carryon, if only to free up her hand in order that he could grasp it himself. That was one of the nice things about being in Paris, the feel of the simple warmth of his hand in hers.

Grissom led her outside towards the queue of waiting taxis, smart enough as he was not to mention that she looked too dead on her feet for the train, but still able to acknowledge and take that reality into account.

As he proceeded in his almost too learned French to give directions for their apartment to the driver, Sara sank back into the seat with a heavy sigh, relieved to be off her feet even after all those hours of sitting on the plane.

That done, the journey home continued on in relative quiet. The two of them had quickly learned that it was never a good idea to carry on extensive conversations in the back of any cab in English. Doing so tended to lead to far longer and more scenic rides than necessary, as the drivers assumed that they were green tourists, and as it seemed to be the case in most cities in the world, tourist ignorance was just too tempting not to attempt to exploit.

Besides, neither of them were really in the mood for small talk or vapid chitchat either. Also as the answer to the relatively innocuous question of _How was your day, dear?_ in their case frequently involved the discussion of bugs or bodies - neither of which really were appropriate for public conversation whether in English or French - it was just better to save such discussions for home. Anything else they might have wanted to talk about was a bit more private than that which could be conveyed at the present moment.

In any case, they were both patient and content enough to simply enjoy the quiet comfort of each other's presence and company, something that had been sorely lacking over the last couple of weeks.

They were just entering the city limits proper when Grissom reached over, covered her hand with his and ran his thumb over her knuckles, brushing it as he did so over the simple gold band she wore there. It was a gesture, probably more unconscious than not, that he'd frequently repeated ever since he'd slipped the ring on her finger at their wedding months before.

As she still tended to absently fiddle with the band herself whenever she was thinking about him, Sara couldn't really find fault in the habit. Instead, she turned to peer up into his face, only to discover there his smile soft and tender, his eyes warm and full of all the things he would have to wait to tell -- and show -- her until they got back to their flat.

After a moment, she took his hand, turned it palm up, then letter-by-letter began to scrawl there the words -

_Je t'aime -- _

I love you_._

His grin grew and in reply he wrote,

_Moi aussi_--

And I you.

*******

They were barely inside the door to their apartment when Hank, with an uncharacteristic display of energy, bounded up to greet them. Well, to greet Sara at least. He planted two eager paws on her jeans and gave her a beseeching gaze, begging as he did so to be rubbed in that one spot just behind his ears that he always loved so much.

Sara knelt, patting him affectionately and saying, "I see someone missed me."

Hank proceeded to show her just how much by taking the opportunity to bathe her face in sloppily ardent dog kisses. Despite her long-held aversion to saliva, she accepted his enthusiasms with an amused laugh.

All of which caused Grissom to quip, "I'm beginning to think he likes you better than me."

Sara gave her husband an exasperated shake of the head. But he knew better than to believe it, particularly as her whole face was now all lit up as if the last couple of weeks, with all their attendant insanity had never happened or at least as if all the unpleasantness hadn't happened.

She felt Grissom's hand slide around her waist as she rose to her feet. Her smile broadened as she turned to him.

Apparently not to be outdone by Hank, Hank being a dog or no, Grissom leaned in to kiss his wife, lightly at first, almost tauntingly as he had done back at the airport, but soon the kiss turned long and longingly.

"_You _miss me?" she said once they broke away.

"You have to ask?" he replied. He was about to better demonstrate his point when he found himself prevented by the light pressure of her hands upon his chest.

At the sudden bemused crinkle in his brow, Sara said, her own voice and expression almost coy, "No teasing this time."

"This time?" he echoed still confused.

"The airport," she supplied and he smiled, not the least bit apologetic even when she added, "That wasn't nice, Gil."

"It wasn't?"

"It was," Sara replied, she the one slightly flustered now. "But you know what I mean."

"It wasn't as if I could kiss you the way I wanted to there."

"Why not?"

Instead of explaining, Grissom began as he had at the airport - with the lingering press against each of her cheeks. She turned, thinking he would once again brush his lips against hers, but he didn't. He caught up her lips and gently eased them apart until they were both lost in a heady open-mouth kiss that there was no way to misconstrue as being reserved.

"That," Sara had to concede a few moments later, still more breathless than not, "Would have been a wholly inappropriate greeting for the airport."

*******

_Continued in_ Letting Sleeping Wives Lie.


	2. Two: Letting Sleeping Wives Lie

**Two: Letting Sleeping Wives Lie**

Gil Grissom paused in the midst of dicing the wild mushrooms that would feature in the filling for the crepes he intended to serve for dinner that night, the better to listen. The apartment was quiet. Too quiet. And for while he'd grown accustomed to it being a lot more quiet there over the last couple of weeks, this evening the silence was more than a little unnerving.

As he distinctly recalled having heard the shower shut off more than half an hour ago, and as she didn't tend to overly fuss after she got out, Sara should have come downstairs to join him a while ago. At the very least, he should be able to hear her moving about upstairs.

But no. There was just the quiet.

Both curious and concerned, he put down the knife, gave his hands a hurried wash and went in search of her.

That he'd managed to remain in the kitchen for as long as he had had been a demonstration of both willpower and self-restraint. He'd been tempted, sorely tempted after that kiss in the foyer to join his wife in the shower. But the smallness of the stall coupled with the universe not having issued a moratorium on Newton's law regarding objects being unable to occupy the same place in time and space rendered the execution of said desire both impractical and ultimately unromantic.

And Grissom, appreciating that Sara, despite all her protests to the contrary, had to be famished after her long flight (the airlines and airports' concessions to vegetarians notwithstanding) had gone up to change out of his work clothes before hurrying down to the kitchen to start on something simple for dinner.

Besides, cooking for Sara had always filled him with a warm sense of pleasure. It had been something he'd really missed while she'd been away.

Just as he had expected, she wasn't still in the bathroom.

He did however soon located her up in their bedroom, curled up on top of the still neatly made bed -- more on his usual side than her own -- clad as she was in nothing more than her silk bathrobe, utterly and absolutely fast asleep.

That hadn't entirely surprised Grissom either, knowing as he did that even on long flights, Sara hardly dozed. That she hadn't slept for at least the twelve hours before her departure he knew perfectly well enough, too. It had been plainly evident in the hint of heaviness hovering about her eyes that even the most radiant of smiles couldn't quite conceal.

As it was, sleeping well wasn't exactly something Sara really did well -- or often. Between the overtime, early call-ins and the seemingly ever-ubiquitous nightmares, sound, peaceful sleeps like this one had long been, more frequently than not, a rarity. That had begun to change since the previous December, he'd been happy to see.

Although these days, he hadn't needed to make note of the fact that no matter how much later he attempted to call her in Vegas she was still at the lab to know better than to believe that over the last few weeks, Sara had been on any semblance of a regular work -- let alone sleep -- schedule (not like that was really all that practically possible in Vegas). Grissom wasn't that naive.

It was good to see her sleeping now.

So for a long moment he paused in the doorway, simply lingering to watch her doze while a fond grin began to tug at his cheeks and softened his eyes.

Just her being there again was enough to leave him wonderstruck.

He probably never would get used to it -- her presence. He hadn't before she'd gone, not even after all the months they'd spent together. After two weeks apart, it was literally breathtaking.

Grissom treasured it accordingly.

He was, as with the shower earlier, sorely tempted to crawl into bed with her. But as she was currently occupying most of the mattress, however physically impossible that should be considering her slight build, there was no way for him to join her without waking her. Moreover, as these days seven o'clock was more than a little early for him to be heading to bed (after years where it would have been late), Grissom knew his wakefulness would likely only rouse her, and he didn't want to do that. Irrespective of her needing sleep, Sara did have a tendency to be cranky if unexpectedly woken.

So he tiptoed to the closet and quietly eased it open to withdraw a spare blanket from one of its shelves. For the silk robe, as pretty as it was to look at, particularly when Sara was wearing it, wasn't very warm. As it was, it had already come loose. As he went to drape the throw over her, Grissom took in the enticing hint of freckled cleavage and the more than a glimpse of her long, pale legs. He gently tucked the fabric around her just to be sure. Autumn nights in Paris naturally tended towards the cool side.

That done, he dallied only long enough to brush a stray strand from her face and place a light kiss into her damp hair before silently shutting off the overhead light and carefully closing the door behind him.

Dinner could wait.

He did proceed to feed Hank, who having come up to investigate what Grissom had been doing and seeing Sara asleep, had been eying the bed as if he would like to join her as well. Even with the promise of food, the boxer had been rather reluctant to follow his master downstairs.

With his usual adept efficiency, Grissom set about wrapping up his dinner preparations and straightening the kitchen. This quickly completed, he tugged the knot at his waist securing his apron free, replaced it on the hook on the back of the small pantry door, and grabbing a bottle of mineral water from the fridge, stepped into the small first floor office, if only long enough to retrieve a couple of manuscripts he'd been asked to peer review for the _Annals of the Entomological_ _Society of America_. Remembering the last place he'd left his reading glasses took a little longer, but before long, he was comfortably ensconced on the sofa in the upstairs sitting room.

Hank, although having been denied access to both Sara and the bedroom, but not being the sort of dog to hold a grudge, slumped down beside him on the cushions.

*******

By the time Sara woke several hours later, night had long fallen in earnest. She blinked a couple of times in the absolute darkness, disconcerted and temporarily overcome as she was by the sensation of not being entirely sure exactly where she was.

Then realization returned.

_Paris._ She was back in Paris.

She let out a long sigh of relief. Except that all too soon, the respite was replaced by bewilderment.

If she was back in Paris, then...

Then there should be a presence in the bed beside her. But there wasn't.

Even exactly how she'd ended up in bed in the first place, took her a moment to recall.

She remembered excusing herself not long after they'd gotten home, on the grounds of being desperate for that long awaited shower. Had loitered longer than usual under the spray, as if enough hot water and French milled soap could wash the remains of the last several weeks away, so that Sara could pretend she had come not just for the week, but to stay.

As she stepped out of the shower to dry off, she'd smiled to see that her favorite pale pink robe, the one Grissom had given her for her birthday several years ago, still hung besides the rattier flannel one of his that she never could manage to persuade him to part with. The silk felt refreshingly cool and familiar against her skin as she toweled off her hair. She'd then pulled it back into a quick, although neater than earlier, ponytail before heading upstairs to change.

As neither of them had any intentions of going out that night, she'd pulled her customary _evening at home wear_ from the closet: cotton pants and simple top. However, because although the weather there wasn't any chillier now than it had been two weeks before, as it was still a full ten degrees cooler than Vegas currently was, she felt the chill more, so forwent her usual camisole for something warmer and with sleeves.

A sudden sense of there being something different about their bedroom had abruptly interrupted her preparations to dress. The room didn't smell the way she remembered it.

There was instead a soft, sweet, fragrantly floral hint to the air, one that she immediately recognized as lavender, although of a sort far more redolent than the scent found in the shampoo and soap she tended to favor in Paris.

The _what_ of its presence was easily explained: a large bouquet of tiny purple blossoms sat on the small table on her side of the bed. The _why_ and _how_ she wasn't quite so sure about. She sank down on the mattress to get a better look.

Yes, it had been the same bunch she'd picked up at the Marché aux Fleurs,

Paris's oldest flower market, before she'd left for Vegas, a few days before she'd even known she was going. Except she distinctly remembered having set them on a shelf in the sitting room downstairs. Why her husband, whom to her knowledge had never shown any interest in cut flowers, had brought them up to their bedroom, she had no clue.

Not that that had come as all of a surprise really. Even after all these years, Gil Grissom had yet to cease to puzzle or perplex her on a fairly regular basis. At least that kept life pleasantly interesting.

With that thought she'd been about to rise, when finally the long flights and longer hours at the lab caught up with her, making the mattress beneath her feel ever more comfortable and inviting.

_A few minutes. _

She would just rest her eyes for a few minutes. It wouldn't even be a nap per se. Just her resting her eyes for a few minutes. That would be all she'd need to feel refreshed and rested enough to better enjoy the rest of the evening.

So she laid back. And even though she knew the sheets had been freshly laundered, Sara could still smell the hint of Grissom there - that warm scent of his that she always associated with home as she curled up on top of the coverlet. As that had been a comfort she'd sorely missed, she'd edged even nearer to his side of the bed and soon was fast asleep.

Now it was just past midnight, if the barely glowing numbers on the clock that resided on Grissom's bedside table were to be trusted. And a lot later than Sara expected it to be.

Although she was more concerned about waking up alone, than for having unintentionally slept for so long.

Curious, she got to her feet, and not bothering to dress, only tightened the sash at her waist before heading downstairs to see what her husband was doing _not_ in bed at this hour.

He was, as she soon discovered, sleeping soundly on the sofa a floor below, not quite snoring, but only just. Hank was another story.

Sara had to conceal a smirk and a sigh at the sight of her husband like this, familiar as it was. Grissom asleep on the couch had been a fairly common occurrence over the years. So much so, that she'd frequently questioned him as to why he even owned a bed for all those years before they'd gotten together if he wasn't going to actually sleep in it. This teasing continued until one evening, when after she'd repeated the taunt for the umpteenth time, he'd turned to her and giving her an almost mischievous smile had replied, "Wishful thinking."

Still, it was a heartening prospect, him sleeping there upright, his head slightly lolling against the back cushion, with his reading glasses still perched on the tip of his nose and in this case, the sheaf of papers he'd been reviewing sprawled over his lap.

For while Sara's sleeping habits (or lack thereof) had long often been the butt of jokes and snide comments, Grissom had been almost as bad about not sleeping. So seeing him sleep at all was a good thing.

Until she'd left to return to Vegas, they both really had been better about it. Having been able to keep fairly regular hours in Costa Rica had helped. There had been no middle of the sleep cycle call-ins; and long and late hours had been a rarity, rather than regular part of life. Paris had been like that too, for the most part, a normal diurnal life. Not that either of them really had all that much experience with so-called normal life. It had been a bit of an adjustment - more so than life in the rainforest had been - sleeping when it was dark outside instead of light – and with the mornings being the beginnings rather than ends of the day.

Briefly, very briefly, Sara considered waking him, if only to drag him up to bed to get some proper rest, but as he looked so peaceful and she didn't have the heart to disturb him, she ultimately decided against it.

And while Hank had given her a bleary sort of peep through half-closed eyes in acknowledgement of her approach, Grissom's deep, even breathing unwaveringly persevered even as she gathered up the loose pages from his lap and reached over to ease his spectacles free.

She did have to admit that the couch really did look inviting - at least with Grissom there. She decided to join him.

Although Hank wasn't all that keen about being ousted from his cozy roost, as it was Sara, and the boxer had always tended to harbor a rather soft spot for her, after letting out a single humph of protest, he took his removal with his usual aplomb and settled to curling up on the floor at their feet. Sara didn't feel too guilty; Hank was soon back to snoring.

The better curl up beside him, she lifted Grissom's arm, snuggled into his side. His physical presence was even more soothing than just the scent of him had been up in the bedroom, so that despite her already lengthy nap, she soon found her eyes growing heavy once more.

Just before she began to drift off, Sara recalled how Grissom not immune to being on the issuing side of a tease himself would from time to time, rue over the seeming incongruity of her sleeping difficulties and her ease in falling asleep around him, asserting that even if it were only an unconscious or subconscious manifestation, she obviously found him dull. The reality, however, was that she felt more safe and at ease with him than she ever had with anyone else, and she really did sleep better with him beside her.

So before she knew it, she was soundly slumbering again, so deeply that she didn't feel Grissom's palm slide over her waist.

For Grissom had stirred as he felt Sara nestle against him, had woken, if only long enough for him, upon finding her next to him, to smile and with a soft, contented sigh, wrap a protective arm around her, before he too dozed off again.

*******

It was still dark and therefore still early when Sara next woke. Yet she knew she'd gotten far more sleep in that one night than she had in a long time.

Normally, she would be okay on four to six hours grabbed when she could get them. For years she'd been lucky to get even that. But she was starting to discover that as she grew older, her body was less and less both keen and able to handle staying up for three days straight.

That morning, Sara wasn't in any real hurry to start the day. It felt too good just to lay there still snug beside Grissom, simply enjoying the closeness. But after a while her worries over perhaps waking him overruled her contentment, so she very carefully moved to extract herself. Quietly as she could, she went up to finally dress, and came down to make herself a quick cup of French pressed coffee before rather reluctantly trudging into the small office adjoining the kitchen to check up on her email.

She hadn't had a chance to check in with Catherine before she'd left Vegas and wanted to make sure no questions or issues had already arisen in her absence. Thankfully, none had. There were just a few routine inquiries and reports regarding a couple of the backlog cases she'd been working on, all of which probably could wait until she got back. But Sara thought she might as well make the most of her present free time and take care of them now.

She'd managed to work her way through almost all of them before her inbox indicated she had a new message. She clicked over to find a brief note from Catherine waiting for her.

Sara -

_I know you haven't exactly had a lot of experience with time off from the lab, but you do_ _realize that the whole point of being away from work is being away from work._

_Will call if there is something that urgently requires your attention. _

_Otherwise, I don't_ _want to see another work-related reply from you until you get back._

_Try and enjoy Paris._

_That really can't be __that__ hard, can it?_

While she'd had to fight back the urge to ask Catherine what she had been doing at the lab three hours prior to the start of shift, Sara violated Catherine's edict only long enough to type "Yes, boss" in reply, before in an act of uncharacteristic deference to authority proceeding to immediately log off.

Sara was still chuckling as she stretched and thought about the best way to keep herself occupied for the next hour or two. The sight of Hank, who had stumbled still sleepily into the office to check up on all the noise she was making, gave her an idea. While she and Grissom usually took the boxer out for a morning walk together, Sara suddenly had other plans.

At first, Hank seemed to think that 6:30 was way too early for a walk, but once he realized he was about to get some time out alone with Sara, he seemed far more enthusiastic about the idea, it still being dark out or no.

As Paris was slow to rouse in the morning, Sara had always enjoyed the peace of the near dawn hours. Most shops and cafes were still closed. The mad rush to work had yet to begin and wouldn't for more than an hour yet.

So there was just the city and the quiet. Just Paris on a cloudy autumn morning. After the two weeks of the hustle and bustle of Vegas, that was something ever more welcome.

Part of her felt guilty, being here on such a day while she knew that all her friends and colleagues had to look forward to in the next several hours was yet another string of 419s. But Catherine had told her not to think about work, to focus on enjoying her time away and Sara had every intention of following this particular supervisory dictum to the letter.

So while they waited for the shops of the famed Rue Mouffetard to throw open their shutters and doors, she and Hank strolled along the Quai de la Tournelle, arriving just in time to catch the last pre-dawn light play upon the gothic towers of Notre Dame.

It hadn't, despite the bevy of goods and wares for sale at the market, taken Sara long to find what she was looking for: all the trappings for a French version of Grissom's favorite breakfast.

She'd been occupied in putting up her purchases in their kitchen, absently softly singing to herself as she did so, when a warm "Good morning," startled her. She looked up to find Grissom standing in the doorway.

"Good morning to you too, sleepy head," she replied, broadly beaming back at him. Then at the curious glance he was giving to the shopping spread over the counters, she shrugged and supplied, "Breakfast," by way of explanation. "I took Hank out. Although he wasn't all that keen on it being that early. We stopped at the market on the way back." Then gesturing to the carafe next to the stove, she asked, "Coffee?"

"Please."

Their old habit of replacing the gallons of coffee they used to drink at the office with tea had fallen to the wayside after all those months in Costa Rica. That and the coffee in Paris was far superior to any tea they could get.

Sara handed him a cup as he took a seat on the other side of the breakfast bar. He sat silently sipping at it for a few minutes while she put the last of her spoils away. Finally, he said, "Was I imagining things or did you spend time on the couch last night, too?"

She nodded. "You really should have come up to bed."

When he replied, "That would have been a little difficult," it was Sara's turn to give him a bemused look. He was grinning as he explained, "Someone was hogging the bed."

"Funny, I don't remember Hank..." she began as she closed the door to the small pantry behind him shut.

"It wasn't Hank."

"Right," Sara scoffed, her voice so laden with disbelief that Grissom had to bite back a guffaw.

However, any further attempts at a tease on his part were hastily abandoned once her nimble fingers began massaging the knot at the base of his neck.

"You have to be sore," she sighed. She certainly had been from her own stint on the sofa.

Grissom was about to protest that he was fine, even though in truth he really had woken up stiff and achy, but he was enjoying the feel of her warm hands on his skin far too much to risk doing anything that might make her stop. Before long, he was having a hard time keeping the pleasure from humming at the back of his throat.

When it finally emerged as a series of soft moans, Sara gave a satisfied chuckle and redoubled her efforts as she asked, "Your lecture still not until this afternoon?"

"Uh-huh."

Fridays were the one day he'd been scheduled for a mid afternoon rather than a mid morning lecture.

"You have any early meetings? Appointments?"

"Uh-uh."

Despite him being in possession of both a doctorate and a very voluminous vocabulary, it seem that guttural utterances were all Gil Grissom could manage at the moment. In fact, he'd been impressed that he'd gotten out the actual word "No," when she's said, "So, no plans for this morning?"

At the curious playfulness in the "Good," she gave him in return, he turned on his stool to peer up at her.

"You took Hank out already. Got breakfast," he began. "_You_ have plans for this morning, dear?"

Sara made no reply. Instead, she used the moment to narrow what little remained of the space between them. She slid her palms down from his shoulders until they came to rest on his chest, her fingers absently toying with the top buttons of the oxford he was still wearing. She leaned in and began to brush kisses along the bare skin that lay just above his neatly groomed beard.

By the time her lips made it to his mouth, there could be no question of her intentions.

*******

The rest of the morning passed with blissful rapidity.

They lingered for a while curled up in bed together, long after making love, the two of them quietly content and sated, simply kissing and touching and talking. That was until Sara's stomach gave an insistent rumble, reminding them both that food was long overdue. They each laughed, exchanged one last, deep drawn-out kiss before surrendering to the practicality of breakfast.

They'd barely vacated the sheets before Hank had commandeered the bed.

*******

Sara had opted that afternoon to join Grissom at his lecture at the Sorbonne. In fact, she had been looking forward to it, interested as she'd always been in his lectures. It had been a while. At least when it came to formal seminars.

For while the pre-conference gossip before the San Francisco Forensic Academy Conference all those years ago had had it that Dr. Gil Grissom was a little dull as a speaker and she'd frequently heard the guys back at the lab puzzle over and even tease Grissom about the impossibility of his talks being all that popular or even interesting, Sara enjoyed them, always had.

Thinking back on it, if eleven years ago someone would have told her that attending a forensic conference would literally change her life, Sara would have scoffed. But it had. After all, that was where the two of them had met, in one of Grissom's seminars.

While there had been nothing sexy about a double murder in a garage, she'd been captivated by his enthusiasm for the subject, been impressed by the depth of his knowledge and yet surprised by his complete lack of superiority. Her previous encounters with men of his professional experience and stature had frequently been soured by displays of rampant egotism and swagger. But Grissom had seemed to be more interested in sharing his knowledge rather than lording it over others. Nor was he above admitting it when his theories proved wrong.

In that seminar, he'd introduced her to an entirely different way of looking at the world, one where science really could help explain human behavior and lead to the discovery of truth and sometimes even justice.

While time had done much to tarnish that idealism, it had done nothing to change the way she felt about Gil Grissom, except to deepen those feelings of admiration into love.

The more she thought about it though, the rest of the team would probably have regarded Sara's attending one of her husband's lectures as one of those spousal duties one performed in attempt to share in each other's interests. But she was actually interested, genuinely interested.

Although she'd never imagined that bugs would become such a large part of her life, they had. All those months in Costa Rica had gone to prove that fact. And she'd even been a little chagrined when after she'd described the project she and Grissom were in the process of finding grant money for, Nick had, in attempts to be conciliatory, said, "I bet you were just thrilled about that." For after all, the whole thing had initially been her idea.

So the second part of _Introduction to the Basic Principles of Entomology_, while not likely to prove all that revelatory after her years of working and living with Grissom and his bugs, was still something Sara was looking forward to as she stepped into the lecture hall.

She was about to take a seat in the back when a mousy, bespectacled sort of young man hurried up to her and Grissom.

As Sara hadn't had the chance to meet Grissom's assistant before leaving for Vegas, the usual formal introductions were in order. But even though Grissom presented his wife to Claude Boutin in his ever-meticulous French, Boutin replied in equally adept English that he was very pleased to meet her.

The phenomenon was something the two of them had often encountered while out and about in Paris. Even the slightest hint that they were native English rather than French speakers (not that either of them could or attempted to pass for the later) would often lead to whomever they were talking with to proceed to continue on the rest of the conversation in English. Although the gesture was meant to be both accommodating and polite, for two people who were intent on practicing and perfecting their French, it made it rather difficult. They continued to persevere anyway. Which Sara now did, insisting on making it through the rest of the usual pleasantries in her not always quite perfect French.

It turned out that Boutin had read the one entomological paper she had co- authored earlier in the year and was quite curious to hear more about the work she and Grissom had done in Costa Rica.

As the young man had already made sure that everything was set to go for the lecture apart from uploading the PowerPoint presentation, Grissom excused himself to go do so and left Sara to amuse his assistant - although the look of amusement Grissom gave her as he went seemed to indicate that Boutin's unbridled enthusiasm was pretty much par for the course.

It quickly became obvious that Grissom had neglected to inform Boutin about Sara's current - and his former - profession. Sara decided to keep it that way.

Bugs were simply easier to discuss. More Latin, but less gore.

In any case, Boutin was curious as to where they'd gotten their idea for using the tracking of seed dispersal as a means of demonstrating the integral role insects such as dung beetles played in perpetuating rainforest diversity. Sara chuckled and proceeded to explain that it had been dung beetle racing that had sparked the experiment.

At this, Boutin had interrupted her, not sure it seemed as if he'd heard her correctly. Sara attempted to clarify by informing him that dung beetle races were a variation on cockroach racing, where in this case, the beetle won by being the first to roll its ball of excrement across the finish line. However, this reply only seemed to raise more questions than it answered, as Boutin had apparently never even heard of racing cockroaches before.

As he was giving her a look both she and Grissom had seen on the faces of her husband's French colleagues from time to time - the one she knew translated to _Crazy Americans - _she suggested he ask Dr. Grissom to tell him more about the whole thing some time. After all, the dung beetle racing had been Grissom's idea, even if Bernie and Luis, the camp's two resident parataxonimists, had eagerly gone along with the scheme.

In any case, any further discussion on the topic was postponed by the arrival of several students whom Sara upon first inspection thought appeared to be way too young to be attending university.

With one last "_C'est un plaisir de faire votre connaissance,_**" **Boutin withdrew and Sara took a seat at the rear of the hall, hoping to remain as unobtrusive a presence as possible.

*******

A little less than an hour later, the lights in the lecture hall came back up. Dr. Grissom asked if there were any final questions and fielded a couple, before reminding them of their next reading and proceeding to dismiss the class, who with the characteristic exuberance of youth released from the tedium of lessons, noisily packed up and filed out.

While Boutin went to make sure the A/V equipment was properly shut down, Grissom replaced his lecture notes and presentation disk in his own bag. He was surprised to find that even after he had done so, Sara hadn't appeared to move from her seat at the back.

No, she couldn't be, he thought as he peered up at her. But he'd only needed to make it halfway up the aisle to have his initial suspicions confirmed.

His wife was slumbering just as soundly as she had been in their bedroom the night before.

He had to choke back a chuckle. Obviously the dark, warm room, lateness of the day, time difference, jet lag and the lack of regular sleep had conspired to cause Sara to unceremoniously nod off in the middle of his lecture.

At least, he rued, she wasn't snoring.

But instead of being upset or even chagrined, Grissom was more amused than anything. It took him a moment to completely work that tickle of merriment from his throat so that it didn't permeate his voice when he called out to her. When she didn't respond, he laid a hand on her shoulder and tried her name again. As this didn't rouse her either, he leaned in and with a bit more insistence, murmured, "Honey," as he attempted to gently nudge her awake. It wasn't until he brushed his cheek against hers that she started, blinked bleary-eyed and bewildered up at him.

"You do realize," he told her in all mock seriousness, "that it isn't exactly the best of recommendations for a _professeur _when his wife falls asleep in the middle of his lecture."

But he was smiling when he said it.

*******

_Continued in _You're Never Too Old (or Married) to Date Each Other.


	3. Three: You're Never too Old or Married

**Three: You're Never too Old (or Married) to Date Each Other**

_Damn._

Grissom gave the knot in his necktie an impatient yank, before letting out another barely audible curse, thinking as he did so that whomever had come up with the axiom _Third times the charm_ never had to attempt anything more than twice.

And he was already on his forth try for the evening.

It wasn't as if he usually had this problem, particularly as ties were now a regular part of his work wardrobe these days, but tonight he just couldn't get the damn thing to come out even no matter how careful or hard he tried.

Mind you, he hated wearing neckties. Had always hated them. Although he supposed he should be glad it wasn't a bow tie. He never had gotten the hang of those.

Maybe it was just nerves. Or anticipation. Or the uncertainty. Or perhaps it was the new tie. All Grissom did know was the damn thing was driving him crazy.

For the better part of five minutes he'd been standing in front of the mirror by the front door attempting to do up his tie. Nearly half an hour before, Sara had, in an uncharacteristic display of furtive insistence, shooed him out of the upstairs bathroom so she could ostensibly get ready in private and without, as she'd smirked, any _distractions_. He'd retreated up to their bedroom to change.

Which was when he spotted the small box lying on the center of the bed.

If he hadn't been slightly wary before, he certain had been then. Even more so when he'd flipped open the accompanying card to read the words _Wear Me_ scrawled in Sara's ever-messy handwriting.

He'd paused for a moment, wondering if Alice had felt this same sort of queasiness before partaking of the potion to make herself grow larger or consuming the cake to make her shrink. Of course Paris wasn't exactly as rife with perils as Wonderland.

The box, as it turned out, contained nothing more ominous than a neatly wrapped necktie.

Perhaps now that he thought about it, he shouldn't have been surprised.

Still, Grissom tended to prefer to be on the giving rather than receiving end of surprises.

And tonight was all about the unexpected -- for him at least.

Two days before, later that Friday evening after they'd come back home from his afternoon lecture (the one Sara had so unceremoniously fallen asleep in the middle of) and finally supped on the crepes he'd originally planned on serving the night before, he and Sara, with an eager Hank in tow, had been out for their usual post-dinner stroll through the neighborhood when Sara had slipped her arm through his, leaned in and utterly nonchalant told him not to make any plans for Sunday night.

"Why?" he'd asked, more curious and concerned about the mischievous glint in her eyes than the actual answer.

"We're going out," was all she'd replied.

"Out?" Grissom had echoed, hoping his wife would take the hint and elaborate. She didn't. Not really.

Instead, she'd simply replied, "Yes, out. You. Me. Out."

When he'd continued to look bewildered and persevered in silently waiting for her to go on, Sara had smiled and added, "_Out_, Gil. Like a date out."

That he'd next managed to refrain from repeating the word _date_ had been an achievement in and of itself.

_Date_ wasn't a word the two of them bandied about very often. Even when they had first started becoming romantically involved more than four years before, they didn't really date exactly. At least not the typical _getting all dressed up and going out_ sort of dating. Work frequently made pulling off any sort of elaborate plans difficult, if not often next to impossible. Besides, they both tended to prefer quiet afternoons at home alone together, whether it was at his place or hers.

Although it wasn't as if they never went out - they did. Particularly in Paris, as there was always something to see and do. But neither of them had really regarded their various outings as _dates. _

So Sara, Grissom knew, had something very much in particular in mind for that Sunday. Obviously something she apparently had absolutely no intention of enlightening him upon even after he'd hazarded to ask, "That's it?"

For she'd merely nodded and replied, "That's it."

Then he'd gone for the direct approach. "You aren't going to tell me anything?"

There'd been a momentary pause in which Sara seemed to be considering both his query and her reply, before she'd settled on saying, her already wide grin only further growing, "You'll need to wear a suit."

However reluctantly, Grissom had to concede that he really had no room to complain then, turn about being fair play and all. After all, he'd frequently pulled pretty much the same line on Sara when naturally she'd been eager to know more whenever he'd made plans for them to go out.

Seemingly to have sensed both his resignation and trepidation, she'd patted his arm and said, "Don't worry. You'll like it. I promise."

And he hadn't been able to get anything else out of her since. Unsurprisingly, Sara happened to be as equally adept as he was at keeping smiling silences when she wanted to.

So perhaps it really was just nerves or anticipation or uncertainty that had caused tie tying to suddenly prove to be so problematic that night.

After all, it was just a date.

_Yeah right. _

Going out with Sara was never _just a date_. Never had been.

The fact that they were married, very happily married and had been for a while now, should have squelched any disquiet or distraction on his part. Or at least made it possible for him to concentrate long enough to finish with his tie.

He'd just managed to finally win the neckwear skirmish and had hurriedly donned his suit jacket when Sara called from upstairs that she would _be right down_, and to suggest that he _take Hank out for a quick pee_ as they were_ going to be out for a while_.

Sara was as good as her word, for Grissom had just returned and was unfastening Hank's leash when he heard the first clicks of her heels on the hardwood steps.

Grissom barely noticed the boxer's exit into the kitchen, entranced as he was by the sight of his wife carefully descending the narrow stairs, holding fast as she did to part of her floor length skirt so as not to stumble over the hem.

However he didn't note that trace of awkwardness. He was too busy trying to take her all in.

Sara didn't wear dresses often -- certainly not dresses like this. It was a simple, yet elegant, long silhouette of a dress, of a rich, deep midnight blue, although much of it was covered by the oversized cashmere shawl she'd draped over her shoulders in lieu of having to wear a coat.

That night, she'd done up her curls into a neat upsweep that accented the long, graceful curve of her bare neck in such a way that Grissom couldn't help but be reminded of how she'd first shown up in that seminar of his in San Francisco with her hair in a ponytail.

A slight smile played about her lips. The last of her self-consciousness, which had been brought on by the unfamiliar clothing and shoes, had vanished upon seeing him peer up at her as he was.

There was much more than a hint of awe in his wide-eyed and slack-jawed expression. And his persistent speechlessness, that he seemed to lack the words he was looking for - any words at all - was perhaps one of the greatest compliments he could have given her.

For her part, Sara paused a few steps before she reached the bottom, not as one might imagine for effect, but because she found the sight of her husband standing there, suit-clad as he was, just as arresting as he found her to be in that dress.

It wasn't as if she hadn't seen him decked out that way. She had and often, nearly every day almost since he started at the Sorbonne. But tonight, there was just something different about it -- or him. And it wasn't because he'd chosen to wear his best suit.

In fact, it wasn't the suit at all.

How she'd missed it before, she didn't know. Perhaps she was just noticing it now because her time in Vegas had given her a little distance and objectivity and the ability to see what had long been right in front of her.

Gil Grissom had always been an attractive man, a very attractive man. But tonight, she could see how much the last nine months really had changed him.

While she could tell he was slightly nervous -- admittedly she was too -- beneath that surface level anxiety, there lay an ease and calmness he hadn't possessed back in Vegas. His eyes, despite their wideness, were warmer; the shadows she'd seen there when he'd first shown up in Costa Rica long gone. His face had softened. He smiled more now. Laughed freer. Had developed a different sort of tranquility. Yes, he still had his absorptions and preoccupations; Sara hadn't expected that to change, but they were no longer as all encompassing as they had once been.

Of course what the guys back at the lab would probably first hone in on was the fact that Grissom's hair now had more salt than pepper to it, as did his beard, although both were resultant more from the sun than age. While the look suited him, Sara knew it was guaranteed to provoke the observation that not even a full year of marriage had managed to turn Grissom's hair grey.

But Sara was far more preoccupied in thinking that no man should ever look that good -- one's husband or no.

*******

It didn't take long for Grissom's wonderment to give way to his sense of chivalry. With a few quick strides he made his way to the foot of the staircase and extended his hand to help her down the last few steps. But even once she was beside him, he didn't relinquish his grasp. Instead, he leaned in and while she thought he was going to kiss her hand in the continental manner, he pressed a kiss into her palm before running his lips along the inside of her wrists. At the contact, her breath to caught in the back of her throat.

For Grissom, the openly appreciative look she next gave him certainly made all of his earlier hassles with the tie worth it.

Sara was thinking about said tie as well, noticing the way it brought out the blueness in his eyes, just as she thought it would. That had been one of the reasons she'd chosen it, that and out a strange sense of nostalgia. He'd worn a similarly shaded one for their first date all those years ago.

Except tonight, the tie didn't look quite right. She puzzled over it for a while before realizing what the problem was.

Reaching over and gently loosened the overwrought knot, she said, "You might want to breathe later."

He returned her smile. _Yes, definitely worth it_, he thought as she drew him in for a long, lingering kiss.

Sara let out a soft chuckle when they both finally broke apart and quickly went to rub the trace of her slightly darker than usual lipstick from the corner of his mouth. Grissom, utterly unconcerned about its presence, repaid her kiss with one of his own.

With the warmth and pressure of his lips on hers as they were now, Sara was tempted, sorely tempted, to forgo all of her plans and propose that they just stay in.

But then there was always later and the coming home to look forward to.

The sound of a car pulling up in front of their apartment effectively put an end to her internal debate.

She drew back and once catching her breath, whispered with more than a little reluctance, "We'd better go or we'll be late."

Grissom nodded. "Shall we?" he said, extending his arm to her.

Together they stepped into the night.

*******

Once the two of them had settled into the rear of the waiting taxi, Sara handed the driver a slip of paper, ostensibly with the address of their destination on it. The act hadn't particularly surprised or puzzled Grissom. They'd often communicated with drivers this way, particularly when their destination was obscure or hard to find.

It proved to be neither of these things that night. In fact, it turned out to be a veritable Paris landmark, even if _Parisiens _more reviled than revered it.

After a fifteen-minute ride, one taking them over the Seine to the Right Bank, they pulled up alongside the towering Colonne de Juillet in the place de la Bastille. There, more than twenty stories of blue granite and girded curved glass loomed.

While the stark, almost hypermodern edifice lacked the regal, grand gilded elegance of the century-old Palais Garnier where Gaston Leroux's phantom of the opera had made his home, the Opera Bastille was one of the largest and acoustically superior opera houses in the world, with the reputation and exclusivity to match.

As Sara reached into her purse to pay the driver, Grissom just gaped at his wife, surprised and impressed and slightly agog all at once.

Although his second bout of being rendered absolutely speechless that evening didn't prevent him from resting a hand on her shoulder when she went to open her door.

"Allow me," he insisted.

If it were anyone else, Sara probably wouldn't have demurred. But this sort of gallantry seemed to come so naturally to Grissom, particularly in times like this, that the act didn't feel old fashioned or as the following of tradition purely for tradition's sake. Moreover, although she didn't always really quite understand his need to do so, she knew that it pleased him to do things like open doors for her from time to time.

So she waited for him to come around to her side of the car and allowed him to take her hand to help her to her feet.

As she slipped her arm through his, Grissom inclined his head to say, "Is this your way of making up for falling asleep during my lecture on Friday?"

Sara pursed her lips, shook her head and let out a half-exasperated sigh. "No, dear," she said. Besides, it wasn't like she hadn't already apologized for that --repeatedly -- in both French and English.

"But I thought you hated opera," he replied.

She shrugged. "I never said that. Actually, I've never been," she admitted.

When they'd first come to Paris, there'd been talk about attending the opera, but Sara's unexpected return to Vegas had squashed any plans they'd had. Or so Grissom had thought. Apparently, Sara seemed to think otherwise.

Neither immune or above teasing her husband in return, she gave him a cheeky grin and gesturing to the marquee banner proclaiming _Il Barbiere di Siviglia _(_The Barber of Seville_) said, "Besides, they're going to be playing your song.

"You don't remember?" she asked at the perplexed look on his face. "Body in a septic tank," she prompted, recalling with an almost perverse sort of fondness the afternoon she'd stopped by his apartment after he'd had a particularly crappy day at work (literally), only to discover him emerging from the shower absently singing along with the "Largo al factotum" that he'd been blaring from his bedroom speakers. Sara had begun rethinking the whole appeal of opera ever since.

"Funny," she continued when he remained mum, "I don't think I've heard you sing in the shower since. Guess I wanted to see how you measured up."

Grissom ignored the jab. Instead he said, "Do I even want to know how you managed to arrange this?"

His curious bafflement in this case was well warranted.

Despite the fact French president François Mitterrand had originally commissioned the Opera Bastille to bring opera to the masses, the saying in Paris went that there were only two types of tickets for the opera: those not yet on sale and the ones that had already sold out.

"Let's just say that attending all those faculty parties of yours came in handy," Sara replied. "That and thankfully a few of your esteemed colleagues don't prize going to _l'opera _as much as you do."

*******

Once they had made their way to their seats in the first balcony, with the auditorium really as warm as it was reputed to be, Sara went to remove her wrap. Grissom motioned for her to let him do it. She turned away and the shawl came away in his hands, revealing the thin straps and v-neck shaped back that further accentuated the curve of her neck.

When she returned to both thank and face him again, Sara, despite his attempt to be surreptitious about it, caught the momentary drift of her husband's gaze from her face to the décolletage of her dress (tasteful as it was, it was still cut low enough to reveal the smattering of freckles along her chest) then back up again.

As they took their seats, she whispered into his ear, her voice rife with amusement, "It's okay to look, Gil. Just as long as you don't stare."

And although she wasn't above giving him a hard time about it, the truth was, Sara was pleased by his admiration.

For his part, Grissom had the good grace to look slightly abashed and hurriedly change the subject to something a bit more innocuous. Like the opera they were about to see.

He'd drawn out his reading glasses from an inside pocket of his suit, begun to thumb casually through the _programme _as he proceeded to tell her about how the first performance of Rossini's opera in 1816 had been an unqualified disaster. The production had been booed mercilessly, not because it was bad, but because the composer's rivals had conspired together to egg the rest of the audience into hissing, jeering and heckling through the entire show. Theirs had been a short-lived victory, however. _The Barber of Seville_ proved to be a huge success, becoming the first Italian opera to be performed in the U.S. and nearly 200 years later, it was among the most popular and frequently performed operas in the world.

Sara had a hard time suppressing the slight, fond smile that threatened to tug at the corners of her mouth as Grissom next began summarizing the opera's basic story line, for she'd already taken the precaution of reading up on the production since although Italian wasn't really her strong suit, she still wanted to be able to follow along. Of course she wasn't about to tell her husband this and deny him the pleasure of waxing lyrical on a subject that he was so obviously keenly interested in.

Shortly, the house lights went down; the stage lights up. Grissom sat back and was soon lost in rapt appreciation. Sara watched the delight play on his face until the music and the spectacle succeeded in beguiling her as well.

*******

At intermission, the auditorium rapidly emptied. Not because the audience was desperate to escape the production, but because many of them were desperate for a smoke. Grissom and Sara let them pass before they rose to stretch their legs.

Even through the fabric of her dress, she could feel the warmth of his hand, the one that instinctively hovered at the small of her back as they wended their way through the sold-out crowd. Once they reached the open air of the seventh floor balcony, Sara politely excused herself and disappeared down the stairs. Grissom took a place at the railing to wait for her, pausing to better to examine the one-sheets advertising previous and upcoming productions that hung in front of the great expanse of glass.

Then from the corner of his eye he caught sight of her. He'd always been able to. Even in a sea of strangers, for him, Sara always seemed to stand out. But tonight, it was as if she alone existed. For he really did only have eyes for her.

He went to join her at the head of the stairs. She met his gaze with a smile that lit up her entire face. And in the momentary infinity of a pause, he held her, caressed her entire body with his eyes.

Sara colored slightly. She'd never seen anyone look at her like that, as if she were undoubtedly the most beautiful woman in the room. What she'd never managed to wrap her head around was the fact that to her husband she really was.

It didn't matter if she was all decked out as she was tonight or if she was dressed in a t-shirt and sweats and had just come in from a run (or as it had sometimes happened, come back from a trash call at the city dump), he'd always found her beautiful. He just never managed to tell her that enough.

But tonight, once she had arrived again at his side, he, awestruck as he was, murmured simply and without hyperbole, "_Bella_." Then realizing he'd slipped into Italian instead of French, (understandable after they been listening to it for the last hour and a half), he corrected himself, "_Belle_."

He needn't have. Sara knew both words meant _beautiful_ and flushed with pleasure at the compliment.

The lights dimmed to signal that the second act was about to begin.

As they went to resume their seats, Grissom gestured to her dress saying, "I didn't get a chance to ask earlier. Is it one of Sandra's?"

"Not this time."

"You went dress shopping?" he asked, his tone heavy with disbelief. For he knew all too well how much his wife hated clothes shopping. Hence why most of her special occasion outfits had come from a small boutique in Vegas.

"Not entirely willingly," Sara admitted. "Clare," she supplied by way of explanation. "She decided to take our French lessons on a field trip to the boutiques along the rue Saint-Denis."

"Well, one certainly can't find fault with the results," he replied.

*******

Even before the second act, Sara had long before ceased attempting to translate into English the French subtitles projected at the top of the stage and decided just to enjoy the performance.

_The Barber of Seville _had proven to be a good choice for her first opera. The absurdity of the comedy better suited her current mood than any of the great operatic tragedies would have. She'd had enough of murder and mayhem, trials and tears of late.

This was comedy in its oldest -- almost Greek – sense of the form, not of the sort purely based upon generating hilarity, even if you could virtually hear the laughter in the score and verbal acrobatics. It was _la comédie_ like those of Shakespeare, the kind that always ended in a wedding and _happy ever afters_.

Rossini's opera featured it all. Passionate declarations of young love. Balconies. Morning serenades. Clandestine love letters. Disguises and assumed identities. Eavesdropping and eavesdroppers. A greedy tyrant of a guardian for a villain and a highly resourceful jack-of-all-trades in the title role.

It was redolent of nothing less than the sheer and utter madness inherent in love and loving.

Of course Grissom and Sara had been through their own share of those sorts of mistakes, missed chances and misunderstandings. But they too had made it -- eventually.

Near the start of the second act, while Rosina and the Conte Almaviva, struggling to contain their feelings for each other while they were both under her guardian's watchful gaze, sang in unison,

_Cento smanie io sento addosso, _

_ah, più reggere non so --_

_A hundred emotions burn within me_

_I can no longer control myself --_

Grissom covered Sara's hand with his. She caught, even in the dimness, the glint of the plain gold band he wore there, just as she did on her own and could feel that he had turned his rapt gaze upon her. She met it and they shared a smile.

*******

They lingered a while after the performance was through on the pretense of getting a better look at the space, but mostly because both of them were feeling a little overwhelmed. There was just something about being at a live performance, something almost magically overpowering.

But once the theatre had emptied, Grissom offered Sara his arm again.

"Thank you," he said, as they went out into the lobby.

"For?"

"Well, not complaining for one. You really didn't like it, did you?" he asked.

"No, I did."

When he gave her a disbelieving raise of the eyebrows, she said, "I really did." Then after a moment Sara added, "But...."

"But?"

"But I think I still prefer your version better," she teased. "Although more for the casting and costuming than the actual singing."

"Funny," he intoned in exasperation.

"I'm serious," she insisted.

"That, my dear, is what scares me."

*******

Outside the Opera Bastille the cool misty evening had gone from the threat of drizzle into actual rain. The two of them stood there sheltered beneath an overhang for a moment surveying the night. Sara shivered and tugged her shawl tighter around herself. Wordlessly, Grissom slipped off his suit jacket and draped it over her shoulders.

"Well?" he asked, unsure if she had made any further plans for the evening or not.

"You hungry?" Sara asked by way of reply. Glancing down at his watch, she said, "It's late and most of the cafes and restaurants are closed or about to close for the night, but the _brasseries_ should still be open."

He merely shook his head.

"What then?"

She wasn't sure why she'd expected his next words to be a tease, but they weren't. In fact, all of his earlier amusement had left his face. And Sara caught the glimmer of a far different sort of hunger in his eyes.

He bent so close that his lips brushed against her ear as he murmured, "_J__e voudrais me coucher à vos pieds et mourir dans vos bras_."

The words came out far too fluent for them to be anything but a quote. He knew she knew it, too.

"François-Marie Arouet - Voltaire," he supplied. Obviously, her husband had begun to make progress through French Literature while she'd been away. "_I should_," he began, translating the sentiment, "_like to lie at your feet and die in your arms_."

It was a lot harder to miss the implications and innuendo when it was presented that way.

"Home then," Sara replied, and having no interest in waiting for the rain to let up, she covered her head with her shawl and hurriedly slipped off her heels before taking his hand.

Risking the wet, the two of them made a mad dash toward the queue of waiting taxis.

_*******_

It had mostly stopped raining by the time they'd reached their apartment. But just in case, they both huddled under the lintel as Sara attempted to unlock the front door.

Except said attempt was thwarted by Grissom giving into what he had longed to do all evening. His lips had managed to find a thin patch of bare skin above his suit collar and the hem of her shawl that her bending to concentrate on the key in her hand had better exposed.

"Gil," she sighed, pleased more than chiding, despite the fact that his current attentions made it nearly impossible for her to manage to do something as seemingly simple as sliding a key into a lock.

After a moment, she slowly turned, knowing all too well that there was likely to be only one way to get him to stop long enough for her to get the door open. She covered his mouth in a deep, hungry kiss, which he unreservedly returned, his body drawing ever nearer to hers until she found herself pressed into the door. So that when Grissom proved to be far better at the sort of multitasking that involved getting keys to turn while still engaged in kissing, Sara stumbled back. But he quickly caught her up and ushered her inside, both of them now slightly breathless from kissing and laughing.

Hank, in spite of the lateness of the hour, greeted them at the door with the baleful glare the boxer knew was guaranteed to sucker Sara at least into petting him. Which she did, kneeling down to give him a fond scratch behind the ears. It didn't take long to appease him. He soon disappeared off to bed, leaving the two of them alone at last.

Grissom eased the suit coat from her shoulders. Sara unwound her shawl, slowly began to fold it into a neat square and proceeded to slip off her shoes, happy to be finally free of those horrid heels.

She was even happier yet, when her husband resumed the ministrations to her neck that he had begun on the other side of the door. Starting at the far end of her right shoulder, he gradually kissed his way along her collar bone, lingered in the hollows of her neck for a moment, before the tease of warmth from his breath was replaced by the very real heat of his mouth along the nape of her neck - the spot Grissom knew to be one of her favorite places to be kissed.

Sara closed her eyes and sighed with the pleasure of it; let her head fall limply forward to allow him better access. One of his hands slid around her waist to come to rest on her stomach, gently drawing her to him while the fingers of the other lightly traced along the exposed skin of her shoulders and back.

She could feel him inhale, feel his hold on her tighten, waited for him to breathe again, not knowing that their close contact had caused the slight whiff of lavender he'd caught when she'd kissed him just before they'd left home, to surround and overcome him, just as Sara's presence so often did.

That had been one of his favorite changes since they'd moved to Paris. Here, Sara regularly washed her hair with lavender water and tended to favor the delicately scented soap, the smell of which always served to both evoke and invoke the memory of her and their most private moments. For when they had worked together, Sara never wore perfumes or scents of any kind, as they tended to interfere with the evidence gathering process. But when they were home -- alone --

This had been why he'd moved that bouquet of dried lavender into their bedroom after she'd returned to Vegas. Not because science told him that the scent of the flowers had for centuries soothed and helped with sleep. Science hadn't figured into the decision at all. He had just wanted to have that reminder scant though it might be, of sweetness and laughter and warmth and light and life and peace -- of her -- there with him.

It was Grissom's turn for his eyes to close as Sara reached back to cup his neck in her hand and run her fingers through his still damp hair.

Her name buzzed against her skin.

After all this time, he knew her touch shouldn't still affect him like this, but it did. It did every time.

And slowly Sara turned, first her head and then the rest of her body, the better to kiss him in return.

When they finally broke apart, her hands slid over his shoulders to settle on his chest. She fingered his tie for a moment.

"Thanks for humoring me," she said, giving him a grateful smile before gently working the knot at his neck free. "I know how much you hate wearing them."

He only smiled.

With Grissom now very willingly and readily divested of his tie, Sara progressed to unfastening the top button of his Oxford, then began fiddling with the one below it.

There was no real reason to rush really. There would be no phone calls to interrupt them, insistently clamoring for a return to reality and the rest of the outside world.

So they both stood there, each weighing whether to prolong the already drawn-out dance of desire that had begun the moment she first descended the stairs, or just to surrender to it.

Ultimately, they settled on a bit of both.

With a slight jerk of the head, Sara signaled that perhaps it was best to continue this upstairs. She took his hand and tugged him towards the steps, but she had barely ascended the first one before Grissom caught her up.

The two of them kissed and caressed and began to undress as they slowly made their way up the stairs. Very slowly, as the kissing and caressing and attempts at undressing caused them to loiter every few steps.

On the second floor landing, they paused to catch their breath.

Although Sara's usual impatience with his long line of buttons was notably absent, she did not hesitate to ease the shirt from his shoulders once she gotten the last of them undone. She ran her closely cropped nails along his forearms before sliding her hands beneath the soft cotton of his undershirt. Grissom gasped, overcome by the feel of her fingers along his back, her lips at his own neck now.

He took her face up in his hands, brushing a few of her curls that had managed to come loose, back. He searched her eyes.

There was both tenderness and ardor there.

And he kissed her.

Then there was the whisper of the rest of her zipper.

They both laughed when Sara's dress did not want to come off with even the least bit of grace. The fumbling awkwardness that always seemed to accompanying undressing was still there even after all these years. No matter how sensual the act was intended, fabric caught, buttons or snaps were forgotten, and there was just nothing sexy about removing socks. Yet, the almost absurdity of the process always seemed to heighten the intimacy and closeness of the act rather than detract from it.

As for the dress, it ended up pooled in a haphazard heap with Grissom's shirts.

Sara shivered slightly, more out of desire than chill. Grissom pulled her near-naked body closer to him, both the heat of his lips and hands caressing her until her skin hummed with the pleasure of it.

The time for teasing tempting done, they shed what little remained of their clothing between the top of the stairs and the door to their bedroom.

*******

The next morning, Sara woke with Grissom still snuggled against her, softly and apparently contentedly snoring. And despite how frequently she tended to taunt her husband about this, in truth, she found the sound reassuring, for she knew it meant he was deep in untroubled sleep.

It was a state she was loath to interrupt. Even if the alarm clock they had both apparently forgotten to set said it was already half past eight. Still, she would let him sleep a little longer while she put breakfast together.

Sara padded from the bedroom and down the stairs, gathering up the clothes they had discarded the night before as she went, although not without first appropriating Grissom's dress shirt to wear herself.

She was pouring coffee into mugs when she heard him humming on the stairs.

He entered the kitchen not much later, dressed only in his flannel robe and with his short hair still mussed. Sara had forgotten just how much she enjoyed seeing him like that.

"I was just about to bring you breakfast," she said, arranging freshly buttered toast on a plate.

Grissom pressed a long lingering kiss just beneath her ear.

Her eyes, when she turned to face him, he was happy to find were warm and bright. The color had returned to her cheeks and she was finally starting to look fully rested again. But most of all, with her hair undone, the curls hanging loosely about her face, and her standing there barefoot in their kitchen in a state of dishabille, Sara was that morning just as beautiful as she been the night before, if not more so.

He fingered the collar of what was really his shirt, saying, "You do realize you still have plenty of clothes left in the closet, right?"

"You mind?" she queried in reply.

"No," he admitted however reluctantly. For while he might bemoan her habit of commandeering his clothing, he took a great deal of pleasure in seeing her dressed, or rather not quite dressed, in that manner.

Particularly as she had only bothered to do up two of the middle buttons that morning.

Which made it easy for his hands to work their way beneath the fabric as he kissed her. They slowly inched their way up the back of her bare thighs before coming to rest at her waist. His thumbs absently brushed along the swell of her breasts.

"Gil," she murmured after a moment, not really wanting to interrupt when he was touching her like that.

"Yes, dear?"

"You might want to hold that thought. It's already late. And we both have work today."

"We?" he echoed.

"Yes, _we_," Sara replied. "You have a ten o'clock lecture and I have a meeting with M. Morel."

"From the Musée National d'Histoire Naturelle?"

"How many other M. Morels do you know, Gilbert?" Sara laughed. Anton Morel was the registrar for the museum's extensive entomology collection. "I did promise to pull specimens for your practicums, remember?"

He did. Sara had volunteered to help him organize the hands-on components to his lectures. But that had been before...

When he reminded her of that fact, she just shrugged and said, "So? Just means I have to do more of them at once."

"I do have an assistant capable of doing more than just marking papers and making photocopies," Grissom countered.

"I know. I'm sure Boutin is more than capable and has plenty of other things to keep him busy besides chasing down bugs for you."

Of course Sara's offer wasn't entirely an act of unselfish altruism. If she took charge of locating the specimens Grissom wanted from the millions the museum kept on hand while he had his lectures and tutorials, it would free up the latter parts of his afternoons to do other things.

Grissom, however, was too busy reflecting on the fact that if his wife really wanted him to be thinking seriously about work, she really shouldn't attempt to talk to him about it while only dressed in his shirt, as that was not a sight to inspire thoughts of work but rather banish them.

When he somewhat hesitantly confessed as much to her, Sara grinned and not quite meeting his eyes, admitted more than a little sheepishly that they almost hadn't made it out of the house the night before because of the effect of the same shirt - and the tie and suit - and him being the one wearing them at the time.

At the look of surprise he was giving her at this unexpected admission, she narrowed what little space that remained between them and said utterly matter-of-fact, "You do realize, Gil, that the attraction hasn't ever been only intellectual?"

"I believe that goes for both of us," was all he replied.

*******

A/N: To read more about Grissom's crappy day that Sara refers to in this chapter, see "Shh, It Happens."


	4. Four: Confessions in the Park

**Four: Confessions in the Park on a Tuesday Afternoon**

In le laboratoire d'Entomologie du Musée National d'Histoire Naturelle, Sara had been absorbed in examining a particularly remarkable example of _Elaphrus_ _clairvillei_ under one of the high-powered dissecting scopes when a very familiar voice piped up behind her saying, "Find anything good?"

Familiar or no, she still started slightly.

And let out a sigh as she turned to face her husband. "You really need to stop doing that," she insisted.

"What?"

"Sneaking up on people."

Even though she knew he didn't do it on purpose, Sara still rued the fact that Grissom had never managed to loose that almost uncanny ability of his to suddenly appear without any warning.

"Preoccupied?" he asked in return. "You're not usually that oblivious."

She slid back from the scope so he could take a look.

"Ah," he murmured appreciatively, observing just how the beetle's brilliantly metallic green carapace was randomly studded with a series of reflective ocellar eyespots that glisten almost diamond-like under the light. "Perfectly understandable," he replied. "But I don't recall there being any species of _Elaphrus_ on the list."

"It caught my eye while I was looking for the _Carbidae_ you wanted," she explained. "And I couldn't resist having a closer look."

"Nothing wrong with a little scientific curiosity," Grissom smiled. "And he certainly is impressive."

As Sara carefully replaced the specimen in its case, she said, "What puzzles me are the markings and colorations. What purpose do they serve? I mean I could understand it if it lived in the rainforest, but it's a ground beetle from the Eastern U.S."

"That is a good question," Grissom agreed.

Sara pursed her lips. "You're waiting for me to figure out the answer on my own, aren't you?" she said with a knowing smirk.

"No," he replied. "Actually, I have no idea."

She both looked and sounded incredulous. "Really?"

"No clue," Grissom freely admitted. "Must be one of those as yet unsolved evolutionary mysteries."

If Sara had learned anything from her months in the rainforest, it was that the natural world was certainly filled with those.

She gave her husband and appraising glance. "Not that I'm not happy to see you," she began, "but you didn't just stop by because you happened to be in the neighborhood. Checking up on my work?" she asked.

"I wouldn't waste my time," he replied.

Apart from Sara's ever-present diligence and innate attention to detail, after all the fieldwork she'd done in Costa Rica, there were few people short of post docs who were better equipped to help design morphology and classification practicums.

When she appeared to be still waiting for his answer, he said, "I came to see if you were free for lunch. I would have called first, but your phone appears to be off."

It was Sara's turn to look sheepish, particularly after all the times she had chided Grissom about his rather recently acquired habit of frequently forgetting to turn his phone back on when he finished with classes or meetings. She must have done the same after her meeting with M. Morel that morning.

But she didn't have long to feel abashed, for her husband had already continued on, saying, "I thought we could _faire un pique-nique_." Then as his eyes took in the neat stack of boxes covering her workspace he amended, "If you have time."

She did actually. True, there was plenty for her to do. But she still had time. Besides, if the afternoon outside was anything like the morning had been on her walk over to the museum, the weather was just too fine to be cooped up inside all day.

"Do you?" she asked. Despite the strict French adherence to thirty-five hour workweek, they did tend to keep him busy at the Sorbonne.

"Nothing until three-thirty."

Sara had a hard time hiding her smirk. Tuesdays and Thursdays at three-thirty were Grissom's regularly scheduled French lessons with Mme Laurent. From what he had told her about them, they were frequently the most demanding two hours of his week. Sara however didn't feel too bad about it, thinking it was good for him to be on the learning end of things from time to time. Knowing him, he likely felt the same. Still, just the mention of the _redoutable_ doyen from the French department was enough to make Sara cringe.

She shut off the scope and made sure that she hadn't left any specimen cases open before pulling her light jacket from the back of her chair.

"I just need to let M. Morel know I'll be back," she said.

Although Morel didn't bother to look up from his own work when Sara stopped by the registrar's even more specimen laden desk to say, "_Au revoir, M. Morel. __Je serai de retour__ après le déjeuner."_

He peered up briefly, as if just remembering that she had spent the better part of the morning in his lab, "Ah, Madame Grissom. _Au revoir_."

After years of working and living with Grissom, Sara was long used to such demonstrations of abstraction. Although the tendency towards absorption was about where the similarities between the two men ended. Anton Morel was a very sprightly seventy, his hair still stubbornly black and his air still debonair. When she'd first been introduced to him, Morel had given her an openly appreciative glance before bemoaning the fact that there hadn't been very many pretty young women like Sara interested in entomology when he was still young enough to be able to enjoy it. This observation had for reasons she could never make out tickled Grissom to no end.

As they stepped into the well-kept ground of the Jardin des Plantes, Grissom turned to her and said, "_Madame Grissom_? I though I introduced you as..."

Sara sighed, "You did. I did."

But she had long ago stopped trying to correct M. Morel and many of the rest of her husband's other colleagues. For while Grissom always made a point of introducing his wife as _Sara Sidle,_ inevitably she was addressed as _Mme Grissom _more often than not. It was just the French way. There was no point in fighting it.

At least back in Vegas when the topic as to whether or not she had taken Grissom's name came up, it had been more out of curiosity than anything. Which had made it easy for her to shake her head and laugh and to tell them that she thought that there having been one Grissom around the lab had been enough.

*******

It proved to be an unseasonably warm day for the middle of October. Definitely way too nice to be stuck inside all afternoon so Sara readily assented to Grissom's suggestion that they make it a Parisian lunch, one of the sort where you just disappear for a few hours.

Busy as the _parc _always was, they managed to find a bench in a relatively quiet corner to enjoy the warmth and the sunshine, the food and most of all, the company.

They passed over the various food kiosks that littered the garden, Grissom having stopped and picked up all the fixings for _un pique-nique français_ on his way from the Sorbonne. With his well-chosen spoils spread out between them, they feasted on _quiche aux_ _poireaux_ and tore large hunks from a baguette that was so fresh that the bread still bled the heat of the ovens of the _boulangerie _into their hands. With the aid of Grissom's pocket knife, Sara deftly turned the crisp _pommes_ and gritty _poires _into neat even slices served to compliment the rich creamy softness of the Camembert and the tart earthiness of the Roquefort from the local _fromagerie_.

The meal was simplicity itself -- and yet all the better for it.

They spoke as they ate about how Grissom's lecture went. He cheekily replied that he was _on a roll, _as no one had fallen asleep in his lesson for two days now. Sara bemoaned the fact that apparently her husband wasn't going to let her live down that nap of hers during his lecture, at least not for a while. Sara, with the air of one thoroughly impressed by the whole thing, talked of how M. Morel's methods for the best way to sort through the museum's 40 million plus insect specimens really had come in handy.

The two of them were just finishing washing down the rest of their _déjeuner_ with the last of the _eau gazeuse_ when Grissom said, "So how is Vegas?"

"Still Vegas," Sara offhandedly replied.

As they both seemed to have been adhering to their long held, unspoken agreement to attempt to make the most of the time they had together, neither of them had spoken much about Vegas since Sara had arrived.

Grissom hadn't inquired about the cases she'd been working on, knowing as he did that if she wanted to talk about such things, she would. Although he knew, too, there was plenty she hadn't been telling him during their phone calls over the past couple of weeks. Mostly because he had done the same with her when he had been the one in Vegas and she'd been in San Francisco. The omissions weren't acts of deception or concealment, but more ones of survival. Because talking about the horrors they saw everyday meant having to deal with them and the present wasn't always the best of times to deal with such things. And he for one had wanted there to be more to life than speaking and living for the dead, even if it were only for the minutes they shared on the phone.

And then with all the long hours Sara had been putting in (so much so that he'd stopped being surprised when no matter how late he called, he always found her at work) there really hadn't been much of a chance for them to talk about how things at the lab were going.

Recognizing the fact that her husband was content to sit there and patiently wait for her to give him an actual response, Sara shrugged and said, "I'd forgotten how bad the coffee was."

He smiled at this. "Apart from Greg's, Doc's got the only decent stuff in the building."

Sara perked up at this unintentional revelation. "Doc huh?"

Grissom held up his hands. "You didn't hear that from me," he insisted.

"Of course not."

But the momentary playfulness left his voice when he asked in all earnestness, "You regret going?"

Without hesitation, Sara shook her head. "No. Although the job still has its downsides."

"Like dead bodies put through wood chippers," he supplied.

"Yeah," she readily agreed. "And it looks like I need to schedule some time on the shooting range for when I get back."

"Gotten a little rusty?"

"More than a little," Sara admitted. "I think Nick's currently a better shot than I am."

"Ouch," Grissom replied.

Nick wasn't known for his shooting ability. More than once he had failed his firearms qualification.

"Making a dent in the backlog yet?"

"I wish," she sighed. There just wasn't enough people or hours in the day to keep up with the incoming cases let alone handle the lower priority ones already in process.

"When you first mentioned having work to do, I thought you'd brought some with you."

"No. And Catherine made it very clear I wasn't even to try."

"You started to under-bill your overtime yet?" he asked curiously.

"No," Sara replied automatically, then realizing his implications asked, "How did you know about that?"

For long ago she's stopped accurately recording just how many hours she worked. The practice kept her from getting stuck with desk duty in the lab because she'd already maxed out her overtime hours for the month.

Grissom gave her a patently patient grin and told her, "I may not have a degree in mathematics but I can add, dear."

Obviously, the tack hadn't gone unnoticed.

"And you never said anything?" she asked in return.

"Would it have made any difference?"

"Probably not."

There was something more than just curiosity to Grissom's next question.

"So how did you manage to get Ecklie to agree to let you come back so soon?"

Sara didn't immediately answer. She had always known that they would have to talk about it, that it was a discussion she needed to have with her husband, but as it was one she hadn't really been looking forward to, she'd been hoping to put it off as long as possible, and probably would have waited until the night before she left if he hadn't brought it up now. It was just the way they had always dealt with things: not talking about them until you had to. It had just been easier that way -- or felt like it.

She took her time, first letting out a long exhale of breath before saying, "I promised to talk to you about staying on a little longer."

Grissom's "I'm not surprised" came out both wistful and knowing.

"Gil, I know we originally agreed it would just be for a little while," Sara began, "but they're swamped and…."

Her voice trailed off as if she were afraid she'd already said too much.

"And?" he probed gently.

"Don't get me wrong, Catherine is a great supervisor --"

There would have been a time when Grissom would have had trouble believing this. But at some point over the years, Catherine and Sara seemed to have made their own separate peace with each other. It had been a truce and even amity he had been happy to see happen.

"And I told her so," Sara continued. "That's not the problem. Even if Ecklie thinks it is.

"But Catherine's right. Things are different without you there. Not necessarily bad different," she hurriedly amended. "Just different. And change is hard."

Grissom nodded, all too cognizant of the veracity in that. Change was always hard.

"Particularly when there isn't any time to process it all," she added. "But they'll be fine. They all will. They just need time."

He gave her another nod then said, "Sara, while I'd prefer we were together..."

She smiled sadly at this. "So would I."

"What do you want to do?" Grissom asked.

"Honestly?"

"Yes."

"I want to finish what I started. Well, at least try to."

*******

They were taking a postprandial stroll through the grounds and had just stopped to admire the garden's impressive cedar of Lebanon (whose planting predated both the French and American Revolutions by nearly half a century) when Grissom turned to Sara and said, "So apart from all the changes and Vegas being Vegas, how is everyone?"

For a moment, she considered asking when Gil Grissom had started becoming interested in office gossip, but Sara recognized that gossip wasn't at all what her husband was interested in hearing. He was simply curious and concerned about the people, some of whom he had known and worked with for the better part of a decade or more.

Not that she'd had much opportunity to catch up with any of them really since she'd returned to Vegas. Sara had yet to have that bite to eat with Catherine - the whole shoot out at the lab and subsequent clean up had effectively put a damper on any of their after work plans.

"You were right about Langston," she said. "He's a bit of a forensics wunderkind, which certainly comes in handy, but..."

"But?"

"He's good. Sometimes a little too good."

As the look Grissom was giving her seemed to say _And this is a problem why?_ Sara smiled and said, "No one likes the solution to be _that_ easy to figure out. You were bad enough. Although at least you tended to let us work things out on our own, which helped make the fact that you always seemed to know everything a bit more bearable."

Grissom chose to ignore the barb.

"He's already got Hodges wrapped around his little finger."

He did however grin at this. "I told you I was easily replaceable."

"Hardly," Sara replied. Then both her mien and manner turned tender. "Vegas isn't the same without you," she confessed.

He met her gaze and replied no less earnest or honestly, "Neither is Paris."

For a long moment they were both tempted, more than tempted to do more than just stand there and lovingly regard each other, but despite the prevalence and free exhibition of PDAs in Paris's parks, neither of them had ever really been all keen on such things. Instead, Sara took his hand and tugged him towards the great girded jewel box like gleaming glasshouses.

"I almost forgot," she said. "Nick found Stevie."

"You're kidding."

"Nope. Of course his tarantula seems to still be AWOL so there's still a spider on the loose in the lab."

"I bet Catherine was thrilled to hear that."

Catherine wasn't all that keen on the keeping of live insects in the lab, never had been, for the very reason that the creatures tended to have what she considered to be the nasty habit of liberating themselves.

"He'd just gotten it, so I'm not even sure she knows he even had it. And as she just promoted him, I don't think he'd dare tell her," Sara laughed.

"She made Nick assistant shift supervisor?" Grissom asked.

"I didn't tell you?"

"No, you neglected to mention that, dear."

Sara gave him an offhanded shrug before saying, "It was about time, too."

"You sound pleased."

"I am," she said. Sara had been hoping for as much after that rather unexpectedly frank _tête-à-tête _she and Catherine had shared in the locker room her first shift back, the comprehensibility and real world applicability of baseball analogies notwithstanding. "Why wouldn't I be?" she asked.

For one, it was certainly a far different attitude than she had displayed when the two of them had spoken of Grissom's recommendation to promote Nick over her more than five years before. Of course if his memory served, he hadn't exactly been honest with Sara about his reasons why then. He paused, weighing whether or not it was either prudent or profitable to potentially resurrect the hurts of the past and reopen old wounds, particularly ones he'd been partially responsible for inflicting in the first place.

Still, there was something he'd wanted to know, had wanted to know for a while now.

"Sara," he began. And recognizing in the tone of his voice that he had something serious in mind, she gave him her full attention. "Why did you come to Vegas?"

There was the barest hint of a pause, but Sara having long been used to Grissom's frequent non-sequiturs, simply said, "You mean after Holly was shot?"

"Yeah."

At least that was easy enough to answer.

"You asked me to," she readily replied.

"And you stayed?"

"Because you asked me to."

Remembering well how once several months before they had actually started seeing each other she had told him, _you've always been a little more than a boss to me. Why do you think I moved to Vegas? _Grissom said, "So you really did come to Vegas because..."

"Because of you," Sara finished. "Yes. Yes, I did."

After all this time, perhaps the answer should have been obvious, or if not, the question long before been put forward, but Grissom's expression now seemed to ask _Why?_

"Gil, I had never met anyone like you before," she replied. "Your passion for science and forensics, it was infectious. And you knew everything. Understood everything. Made it all look so easy. I know it wasn't," she said before he could protest. "And yet, you weren't all pompous or arrogant like most of the so-called experts I'd met were. A little clueless sometimes, perhaps. But you were never _dull _-- despite what I'd heard."

Sara grinned. So did he.

"It was hard not to be in awe of you. But it was more than that.

"Look, when I started as a CSI in San Francisco, the department didn't have teams. It was dog eat dog, sink or swim. You were on your own. There just wasn't the time to show someone whose specialties were physics and mathematics the ropes. So I never really had a mentor before I met you. And you, you didn't seem to mind answering all my emails full of questions or providing explanations for all the things I didn't understand.

"Forensics was still mostly foreign to me and there were times when I wondered if I had made the right choice after graduate school. But you encouraged me to stick with it. You had faith in me and apart from a couple of my professors, no one have ever treated me like that. Believed in me like that.

"So yeah, I came because you asked me to and stayed because you asked me to. And once I got to Vegas, I wanted to be worthy of that faith, that trust.

"Then when it became clear that the only relationship we were likely ever going to have would be a professional one, if the only way you were ever going to see me was as a co-worker, I decided I was going to do whatever I needed to do to do that well. So I worked hard, pulled the doubles and long shifts, came in on my days off, tried to be your best pupil, to impress you. And mostly failed at it."

"No, you didn't," Grissom replied.

"I didn't realize then that wasn't how you worked. You believed in issuing challenges rather than dolling out gold stars. And I have always been a sucker for gold stars," Sara said, loath to admit it.

He nodded. "That was why the promotion meant so much to you."

"I didn't understand it -- your reasons. I thought you'd want someone who _wanted_ the job. So when you chose Nick, I guess I felt that not only wasn't I good enough personally, I wasn't good enough professionally either."

For Sara, the coupling in rather short succession of the professional with the personal rejection had been hard to bear, almost too hard to bear at the time.

How wrong she'd been, Grissom was now thinking. And how much a coward he'd been, not to have told her then.

"That wasn't why I did it," he said softly. "And you were right. It was personal, that decision."

She started slightly at this, but waited for him to continue.

"Sara, we didn't need another me in the lab."

"And you thought that was what would have happened?"

"It already was happening," Grissom insisted. "The doubles. Coming in on your days off. Being maxed out on overtime every month. You spent more time at the lab than at home." He paused to take a deep breath before saying, "I guess I didn't want you to wake up one day and realize..."

"That I had never really lived at all?" she finished with a sad sort of smile.

"I didn't want you to have the same regrets," he said. "I should have explained it better at the time."

"I'm not sure I would have understood it any better, not then," Sara replied. "Besides, we weren't really on the best of terms, were we?"

"No," he agreed. "But I still wanted something better for you."

At first, Sara didn't quite know what to say to that. It was one of those moments when she was almost painfully reminded of the fact that Gil Grissom never had been as _emotionally unavailable_ as she (and everyone else) had both assumed and accused him of being.

But he was still speaking. "So much for good intentions," he said with a doleful shrug. "Thing was, you weren't the one who needed saving from yourself.

"I was."

"No," Sara said, taking up his hand again, this time making a point of threading her fingers through his. "We both did."

Despite or perhaps in spite of all of that, they had managed to make a good life together. Not a perfect life. But a good one. Even with them having to spend more time apart than together, it was still a far better life than either of them had ever dared to dream or hope possible.

Perhaps it wasn't as simple as _all's well that ends well_, but Sara felt about the life she had now the way she did about Nick's promotion, pleased, overwhelmingly pleased.

So she gave her husband's palm a firm squeeze and said, "Well, thankfully, I stopped trying to be your star pupil quite a while ago."

Grissom had to admit that was true. If anything, Sara turned out to be the best teacher he'd ever had - at least when it came to the more important things in life, like loving and living.

"And I found a much more appropriate place to look for validation," she added.

"Oh?"

"If you haven't noticed, I rather like being your wife," came Sara's warm reply.

They shared the smile, before hers morphed into one that was more playful than affectionate.

"Despite all the teasing I've been getting for it," she continued with a chuckle. Although secretly a part of her actually enjoyed it, she would never admit that to him. "Of course they would never dream of teasing _you_," she concluded with a not entirely exasperated sigh. For she knew that his exemption was born more out of fondness than general fear, that and a still heavy measure of disbelief.

"You will give them all my best," was all Grissom said by way of a reply.

"Even Ecklie?"

Obviously, still no love lost between those two even after all this time.

"Even Ecklie," he insisted.

At her terse and almost petulant "Fine," he sighed and shook his head.

From off in the distance, they could hear the call to Asr, or afternoon prayer, drifting from the nearby Mosquée de Paris. They both glanced down at their respective watches.

Somehow, the afternoon had managed to get away from them. It was already after three and time to get back to work. Sara still had specimens to pull and Jeanne-Marie Laurent was not a woman you ever kept waiting.

Sara leaned in and Grissom thought she was going to kiss him _adieu_ in the French fashion but instead, the kiss she placed on just his right cheek lingered far longer than any conventionality or strict adherence to propriety would have approved. Neither of them cared.

Particularly Grissom, when before withdrawing she paused to whisper into his ear, "_A tout à l'heure quand tu rentreras_." _I'll see you when you get home_.

There were few phrases in either French or English he liked the sound of better.


	5. Five: One Last Night in the City

**Five: One Last Night in the City of Lights**

At four a.m., it wasn't exactly the middle of the night, but near enough. And way too early for creatures of the day to be out of bed.

So when Sara woke to find the space beside her empty, she sat up and blinked. In the faint almost blue light that spilled from a narrow gap in the curtains, she could make out her husband's familiar silhouette. From the distant look his face and eyes had assumed, and as they didn't really have much of a view from their bedroom windows, she knew he wasn't intent on examining the flower boxes of the flats opposite.

Both concerned and curious, she called out to him.

Readily he turned and giving her a reassuring smile said, "Go back to sleep, honey. It's still early."

Part of her wanted to ask him _Then what are you doing up?_ but instead said, "Why don't you come back to bed. Try and get some more sleep. You have a lecture in the morning."

He chuckled at this. "I am not so dull, my dear, that I can put myself to sleep."

Sara shook her head as she slipped from the sheets to go and join him.

"You okay?" she asked, wrapping her arms around him from behind. She brushed a kiss into his t-shirt clad shoulder then rested her cheek there.

He covered her hands with his. "Yeah," he nodded. "Just couldn't get back to sleep."

At least he had slept. For when she had finally managed to fall asleep, keyed up as she usually was the night before a flight, it had been to the sound of his peaceful, deep, even breathing and the reassuring rhythm of his heart beating beneath her ear.

After a while, she could feel the tension slowly leave his spine. But he was still quiet, which made her concerned, even if she knew Grissom had all sorts of silences, and not all of them were bad.

She gave him a squeeze. "I'd offer you a penny for your thoughts, but all I have are Euros."

Sara was happy to find this amused him.

Although his voice was more pensive than full of laughter when he replied, "Shakespeare."

"Why doesn't that surprise me?" she chuckled. "Shakespeare in general or something in particular?"

"_Wilt thou be gone?_" he began, the borrowed words rich and tender. "_It is not yet near day: It was the nightingale, and not the lark._"

She nodded in comprehension. For the last week, she'd tried her hardest to put the thoughts and reality that she would soon have to return to Vegas behind her. The first couple of days she'd been able to do just that. Wanting things to be normal, she'd willed them that way.

Besides, the mundanities of life still had to be observed.

Laundry to be done. Dishes to be washed. Trash taken out. Dry cleaning picked up. Trips to the market made.

But there were extra walks with Hank, too. Evenings curled up reading or watching movies together. Mornings in cafes where they'd far often been too lost and wrapped up in each other to notice much of the rest of the world.

And Sara had managed to pull enough specimens to keep Grissom's students occupied for the better part of six weeks.

So it had been easy to believe that these sorts of days could go on forever, instead of being rather so few and fleeting.

However, her already packed bags belied the truth.

Yes, it had all passed ordinarily enough. But the ordinariness in their time together had been what had most served to remind her how much she had missed him while she'd been away and how much she would miss him once she was gone again. Strange how presence worked that way.

And how time had the tendency to slow down to a veritable crawl when you were waiting and wanting it to pass. Yet it sped and rushed and was soon come and gone when you most wanted it to linger.

Still, she had managed to gather up her memories of the last several days, was able to store them away to take back with her so as to have and treasure and cherish them while they were again apart.

That didn't change the fact that soon, too soon, she would have to go. No matter how strong her desires were to live here and now, in this place, in this time and not to have to think about Vegas, the reality was just too near to ignore.

With that knowing, she whispered in response the lines that followed the one's Grissom had just spoken, "_It was the lark, the herald of the morn, No nightingale._"

*******

For a long while, they stood there before the tall French windows, just enjoying the warmth and comfort of being this near to each other.

But when it became apparent that going back to sleep wasn't likely to be an option for either of them, Sara gave his hands a tug and said, "Come on, get dressed. We'll go for a walk."

It was his turn to question the lateness - or rather earliness - of the hour.

At this she laughed and said, "Why not? It's not like Costa Rica where you have to worry about the bugs."

He had to admit the truth of this. Even despite the insects, they had frequently used walks to help pass long sleepless nights. It wasn't really dangerous as long as you stuck to the well-marked paths. Being out late at night in Paris was very much the same.

And it wasn't like they weren't used to being up and about at this hour either. Vegas at 5 a.m. was more than familiar, although Paris not so much.

Besides, Sara felt it would be far easier if she felt like she was saying (even if only for a little while) good-bye to Paris rather than good-bye to Grissom.

At night or at least at this hour of the early morning, Paris was quiet. Warm, too, and dry finally. The clouds came and went, revealing the faint glimmer of stars and the bright full moon as Sara and Grissom strolled through the centuries old neighborhoods that in the _Quartier Latin _at least had been spared Baron Haussman's purge of much of old Paris.

It was just the two of them. For as fond as he was of walks out with Sara, Hank seemed to have drawn the line at ones begun still several hours before it was light.

They were walking along the banks of the Seine when Sara threaded her arm through her husband's and said, "Why don't you fill me in on the rest of your lecture from Friday?"

He replied with a barely contained grin, "I don't think that is such a good idea. I don't want to have to carry you home."

"Are you _neve_r going to let that go, _Gilbert_?"

"Not _never,_" he said, now utterly unable to keep from smiling.

She nudged him sharply, although more playfully than annoyed, sending them both momentarily stumbling into the street.

Once they had regained their footing, Grissom asked, attempting to be serious, but not quite managing it, "Do I dare ask what the last thing you remember was?"

Sara considered for a moment, then said, "You were outlining the applications behind comparative morphology."

At that, he really had to work at choking back a laugh. She hadn't even managed to make it a full ten minutes before falling asleep.

She seemed to sense what he was thinking. For Sara protested, "Besides, it wasn't my fault."

"The truth comes out at last," Grissom sagely intoned.

Sara rolled her eyes. He really never was going to let her live it down that she'd once heard he was dull as a speaker.

"It wasn't my fault that someone wore me out that morning," she countered.

Grissom's eyebrow went up at this. Then he did smile, just for the briefest of moments. But it was a very different smile. He leaned in and whispered, "Actually that was _your_ fault. You started it."

*******

His recap of that previous Friday's lecture took significantly longer than the near hour it had originally taken, mostly because even though as it was an introductory lecture and Sara already knew much of the material, she tended to be far more inquisitive than his usual students. But then she'd always been that way. Just as hungry and thirsty to know as he was.

She was asking him about the practical differences in the functioning mouth parts that distinguished coprophagic and carrion eating insects when he suddenly stopped, took up her hand, the one that had rested for the last hour in the crook of his elbow, and turned it over to place a kiss into her palm.

Momentarily caught off guard by the not unfamiliar gesture, she asked, "Tired of all the bug talk?"

"Hardly," he replied, although he really hadn't been thinking about the feeding habits of_ Sarcophagidae_ or _Calliphoridae_. Rather he was marveling over the fact that while change tended to be the only constant in the universe, there were just some things that never did. Sara's desire to know and understand had changed very little since the first time they'd met all those years ago.

In actuality, he'd been indulging in savoring the memory of that day. Although if she hadn't shown up a good fifteen minutes before the seminar was to start he probably wouldn't have taken much initial note of Sara, ponytail or no. While he was still setting up his slide projector, she had, with the air of someone dutifully (although reluctantly) fulfilling one of those department or state dictated continuing education requirements, taken a seat up front and promptly set about in busying herself with the stack of official looking file folders that she'd brought with her. Sadly, many of the students in his seminars were like that, despite what he might have told Nick or Warrick to the contrary.

Except she turned out to be far different than most of his pupils. He'd made it part way through his talk when her hand first went up. While questions weren't uncommon, in fact welcome, hers was more incisive and thoughtful than the ones he regularly fielded. Her subsequent ones proved to be impressively much the same.

For someone who had seemed disinterested when the seminar started, she'd certainly had a fair (although not a disruptive) number of questions. So he hadn't been surprised to find that she loitered behind after the session ended. Although they hadn't made it much passed introductions when her pager went off and she had to excuse herself, having been on-call for the San Francisco PD that afternoon.

Part of him wanted to sigh at how often pagers and then cell phones had done that over the years -- interrupted them. Work always did seem to have the most uncanny habit of interjecting itself into the rest of their lives at the most inopportune moments. It was doing so now, too.

Sara was thinking much the same, about the frequent incompatibility of work and life, when they paused to take in the view along the Pont des Arts, the wooden pedestrian bridge that linked L'Académie Française and the Louvre. Popular as it was for its open-air art exhibits and spectacular sunsets, that morning, it was bare apart from the warm golden glow of the street lamps.

They had chosen to stand along the railing rather than sit at one of the many benches Parisians favored for picnics in the summer and had soon lapsed into one of those comfortable appreciative silences.

Their hands brushed, fingers lightly caressing until she took up his hand in hers and held fast.

Sara, feeling the inexplicable tug of the warring desires to stay here in Paris with Grissom and needing to keep that promise to herself that she would do all she could to help her friends, said softly, "_Still had the feeling that you wanted to stay?_"

Recognizing the quote, the ghost of a grin tugged at his lips as Grissom replied, "_Ever had the feeling that you wanted to go?_"

"_Go or stay?_"

"_Stay or go?_" he finished with a knowing sort of nod. "But isn't Durante a little before your time, dear?"

Sara didn't dignify this with a response. Instead, she sighed as she felt his hand slip from hers, only to come to rest in the small of her back. The feel of it as intimate as it ever was.

"You sure know how to make it difficult for a girl to leave," she admitted, leaning in to rest her head on his shoulder.

He pressed a kiss into her hair. "That wasn't my intention."

"I know."

For this time, he wasn't asking her to stay and she wasn't asking him to go.

And that was okay.

There would be other walks, other nights together.

They just wouldn't be tomorrow.

Tomorrow would find her back in Vegas.

But for now, for right now, there was just the two of them -- and Paris.


End file.
